CAREGIVER OF THE MONTH February 2015
From Dan’s desk:
Our February Caregiver of the Month is Diane Larson and this accolade is long overdue. Diane is just plain a “rock star” for our agency!
I remember interviewing her in a coffee shop in Rockford (notice the brick background in her photo?!!). She wrote on her application that she “is a people person” and that she “likes to make people smile by smiling at them herself”. Quite frankly, I see that a lot on applications and it does not always turn out that way. I guarantee that Diane is the real deal! Her smile IS contagious. She IS a people person, and our clients acknowledge this consistently.
But I hear it most often from our schedulers, whom Diane bails out on a regular basis. She is one of those people who understand the meaning of “team” and she will do anything in her power to help out when we are trying to cover an open shift. A while back during a blizzard we called her while she was at one client’s home to work another shift that night when she left there because the roads were impassable for other caregivers who did not have all wheel drive vehicles! Of course she said yes!
Here is another example of why we love working with Diane. Recently we took on a very complicated case. The client needed 24/7 care and had been with another agency for 7 months but was not happy with their services, and he was referred to us. Since it was a 24/7 case we knew the client was nervous about the change; after all, our staff is virtually living with the client.
As we began to populate the schedule we realized just how important the first 12 hour shift was going to be in terms of “you only get one chance to make a great first impression”. As I huddled with the staff on this important responsibility, we unanimously agreed Diane would be the most effective team member to quell our new client’s fears on our first shift. But…she was working till 9p the previous night at another client’s home who lives 45 minutes away from home and this first shift started at 7a the next morning with our new client.
When she was asked if she could swing this, there was a slight pause on the phone…and then she said “yes, I think I can get my neighbor to help my daughter get on the bus that morning”! She was not thinking about getting no sleep; she was knocking down roadblocks to get the job done.
You cannot train that kind of commitment and professionalism in people. That is simply who Diane is. THANK YOU DIANE for helping us to grow our reputation for having the very best caregivers in west Michigan!!
Dan Gauthier
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